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Ten trades, 273 pros. The six with the most published work lead.Hair & Makeup 21Transportation 18Planners 17Officiants 12
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The Table, Savannah to Mount Pleasant
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Photographs via Google Places — these stays do not yet carry photography we host ourselves.
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Everything There Is to Do Here
What’s on · soonest first, one per venue · 27 in the next week
This weekend, 6 Nov – 8 Nov20The whole calendar282
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Food
Eight dishes from the recipe library and a roast turkey, with a schedule for Thursday, November 26 that puts dinner on the table at 4:45.
A Thanksgiving dinner for Thursday, November 26, built from eight dishes in the recipe library and a roast turkey sized with the Thanksgiving dinner calculator: pimento cheese before dinner, she-crab soup to start, then red rice, collards, macaroni and cheese, cornbread, chess pie and sweet tea. A schedule for the day follows the recipes, worked out for a 16-pound bird and dinner at 4:45.
Charleston pimento cheese is extra-sharp and sharp white cheddar, grated by hand, mixed with drained pimentos, mayonnaise, cream cheese, grated onion, Worcestershire and cayenne. Duke's is the mayonnaise the recipe prefers. It needs no cooking and at least an hour in the refrigerator, and it goes out at cool room temperature with saltines, celery or toasted baguette.
She-crab soup starts as a butter-and-flour roux thinned with milk, seafood stock and cream, then filled with a pound of lump crabmeat and seasoned with mace and Worcestershire. Crab roe goes in where it can be had, and sieved hard-boiled egg yolk stands in for it. A teaspoon of dry sherry goes into the bottom of each warmed bowl before the soup, and more sherry is passed at the table.
The Thanksgiving dinner calculator sizes the bird from the guest count, using USDA's pound per guest, or a pound and a half for leftovers, with children counted as half. It also gives the days a frozen bird needs to thaw in the refrigerator and the roasting hours at 325°F. The turkey is done at 165°F inside and rests for at least 20 minutes before carving.
Charleston red rice is long-grain rice cooked in bacon fat with onion, green pepper, garlic, crushed tomatoes, tomato paste, chicken stock, cayenne and a bay leaf. Carolina Gold is the rice to use where it can be found. Once the lid goes on, the pot stays on low heat, unopened, for 20 to 25 minutes; it can also bake covered at 350°F for 25 minutes. The crust that catches on the bottom of the pot is the prized part.
The collard greens are two pounds of collards cooked with a smoked ham hock or smoked turkey wing, onion, garlic, cider vinegar and red pepper flakes. The hock simmers alone for 30 minutes to build the pot liquor, then the greens go in for 45 to 60 minutes and finish with a splash of vinegar. The pot liquor is for the cornbread. The pot is cooked on Wednesday and reheated on Thursday.
The macaroni and cheese is a custard-style bake set with eggs and evaporated milk, made with sharp cheddar and Colby Jack in a 9-by-13 dish. It bakes at 350°F for 40 to 45 minutes and rests 10 minutes, after which it slices cleanly.
The skillet cornbread is unsweetened, made with stone-ground cornmeal, buttermilk and bacon grease. A 10-inch skillet heats in a 450°F oven first, so the batter sizzles when it goes in, and it bakes for 20 to 25 minutes.
Chess pie is a custard pie of sugar, eggs, butter and vanilla, with a tablespoon of cornmeal and a tablespoon of vinegar, baked at 350°F for 45 to 50 minutes. The top bakes crackly. It needs at least two hours to cool and is made the day before.
Sweet tea is two quarts of tea with the sugar stirred in while it is hot. A pinch of baking soda keeps it from turning bitter or cloudy. It takes 15 minutes and at least an hour in the refrigerator.
A frozen turkey thaws in the refrigerator at about 24 hours for every 5 pounds, according to Rutgers Cooperative Extension, so a frozen 16-pound bird goes into the refrigerator by Sunday, November 22. Cold-water thawing takes about 30 minutes a pound, with the water changed every 30 minutes.
Bake the chess pie, make the pimento cheese, cook the collards for reheating on Thursday, and brew and chill the sweet tea.
The calculator gives the roasting hours for other weights, from 2¾ hours for an 8-pound bird to 5 hours for a 24-pound one.
Ted's Butcherblock, at 334 East Bay Street in Charleston, takes Thanksgiving orders by phone at (843) 577-0094 until Saturday, November 21, for pickup on Tuesday, November 24 or Wednesday, November 25. A Bell & Evans fresh turkey is $6 a pound, a Black heritage turkey $10 a pound and a Bell & Evans fresh turkey breast $10 a pound. Brining costs $15, and brining with smoking or roasting $45. Ted's also sells sides at $16 a pound, among them a maple-sage sausage and cornbread dressing and a sweet potato casserole with pecan streusel, plus cranberry sauce at $12 a pint and turkey gravy at $15 a quart, all in oven-safe packaging ready to reheat. Other butchers are in the butcher directory.
The soup takes a pound of lump crabmeat, sold at the seafood markets and docks in the local food guide.
The collards and the red rice both cook in a heavy pot, such as the Smithey 7.5 quart Dutch oven from Southern Crafted in Savannah. Steep Me Tea Apothecary on King Street in Charleston makes a Sweet Tea Kit, and Rhodes Home & Gift in Charleston sells the Lowcountry Linens 3 Oysters dinner napkin. All three are in the Lowcountry Magazine store.
Whole turkey dinners, sides and pies from restaurants, ordered by November 19 to 23 for pickup, are listed in Thanksgiving dinner out, with the restaurants open on the day. Kiawah Island Golf Resort's list includes a pecan pie.